What do you do when the organ dies?

About 2 years ago the church pipe organ died from old age. They are expensive to maintain and more to rebuild. We have nice keyboards that can reproduce any sound that the pipe organ could produce. There is no tuning or seasonal maintenance required. They were sitting on a metal stand that made the stage area look like a night club. They needed to have a nice cabinet.

I found an organ cabinet picture that had the style we were looking for. Decided it had to be made with mahogany, but that is expensive. So off to my favorite hardwood dealer. I buy wood from a local company that mills a lot of their wood for resale. They have pieces they cannot resale. It is used to fuel the fire in their kiln. Over the years I have made friends with them and they let me have what I want before it is burned. Most of the times it is twisted, warped, with knots and other defects. The timing was good and I came out with some nice pieces that I paid $-0- for.

The case is mainly panel construction using my door router bits. The end panels were a little tricky to make. The sides and front panels are joined with a 45 degree locking bit.

On the base unit there are disks that a 3” PVC pipe sits over to form the leg. There is a matching disk under the case unit to position the leg. There is a 3/8” threaded rod holding the two units together. The PVC pipe houses all of the power and audio cord with jacks mounted on the inside face.

I did a 1/8” inlay of purple heart on all of the vertical corners. Again, free wood. This gives protection for the corners and hides a couple of joints that had a little gap in them. I thought that it was a nice touch. I have not told anyone about the gaps. So, keep it quite.

In the 5th picture you can see the electrical and audio connections.

The music holder is made to slide off. I had some flat brass strips that I had bent and attached to an angle block of wood. Clear 1/4” Plexiglas for the upright. This is 33” long.

The finish is minwax stain with 3 coats of clear semi gloss catalyzed lacquer. Then it was pasted waxed and buffed.

There was actually less than $200.00 spent on this project.

Sometimes when I build something it will take on a meaning for me. That is the case with the wood in this project. You may remember that I said that the wood had a lot of twist, warps, knots and other defects. It was scheduled to be burned because It was not fit for resale. While I was installing the console in the church the thought came to me that that is how we are in our own lives. We have twisted thoughts, we have warped attitudes, we have suffered injuries that have left us with many knots and no telling what other defects that condemns us to a fire we call hell. But there is one person who worked as a carpenter that can remove those twisted thoughts, warped attitudes, heal those knots and correct our defects. Of course that Is Jesus Christ. Are you a twisted warped piece of wood to be tossed away or you the finished product of the Master Carpenter?

Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thank you for reading. If you need to talk about what type of wood you are, please message me.

Dark_Lightning – I kept some of the foot petals that were hard maple with ebony wood on them. I had a pen turned by woodbutcherbynight to give to the lady that played the organ. She was very surprised and pleased.